Jiangshan Fengwuzhi

Chapter 356 Seizing Food
"You eunuch, you dare?"

Xu Gonggong's actions angered the wisp of spirit that Gun Gong had inhabited Shen Jichi's body.

The clarity in Shen Jichi's eyes vanished rapidly, replaced by rage.

He raised both hands and clenched them tightly.

Visibly, Eunuch Xu's neck sank in instantly, and his face turned red.

However, Eunuch Xu was clearly quite powerful as well. He kept waving his whisk and managed to avoid being strangled to death.

He could even manage to speak with difficulty.

"Marquis Wuding...I'm helping you..."

"I'm the one who's going to kill you now!"

Clearly, Gun Gong, enraged, took over Shen Jichi's body more and dominated his words and actions.

Xu Gonggong struggled to stay upright, occasionally glancing at the blood pool to the side.

But then they saw the blood in the pool gradually decreasing, slowly revealing a turtle's back.

The turtle's shell grew larger and larger, and strange wings even sprouted from it, making it more and more like the carvings on the second stone pillar.

It was actually drinking blood from a pool of blood.

This blood is Shen Jichi's tribute to Gun Gong. The more Gun Gong absorbs, the stronger the wisp of essence that escapes becomes.

As the blood in the blood pool gradually decreases, Gun Gong can no longer become stronger.

The tortoise licked up the last drop of blood, its body now as large as a pool of blood. It roared to the sky, and the next moment, the giant furnace seemed to sense its power and exerted a powerful suction force on it.

But as the blood pool dried up, the mythical beasts carved on the four pillars also fell silent.

The stone platform appears to have dropped slightly.

"die!"

Shen Jichi's hair turned even redder, and dragon patterns faintly appeared on his forehead.

The essence of Gun Gong within him was completely enraged, and his hands clenched tighter and tighter, causing Eunuch Xu's body to become increasingly distorted.

"Marquis Wuding...our family...is doing this for your own good..."

With difficulty, Eunuch Xu spoke, and at the same time, he used his last bit of strength to lift up his whisk.

A vine rose high behind him, its end wrapped around a human figure.

"father!"

Shen Lingshu finally saw her father and shouted with joy.

However, Shen Jichi seemed to have been completely possessed, turning a deaf ear to everything else and only thinking about killing Eunuch Xu.

"Dad...save me..."

Xu Gonggong struggled to hold on, hoping that Shen Lingshu could still awaken Shen Jichi's spiritual consciousness; otherwise, he would not only be powerless to suppress Gun Gong, but would also die here.

After a while, as Shen Lingshu cried out, Eunuch Xu felt that Shen Jichi's strength seemed to have loosened a bit.

At least, he was able to notice another thing here.

—Right on top of that giant furnace, a person was climbing, about to ascend into the swirling red mist.

"Gu..."

A glimmer of clarity gradually returned to Shen Jichi's bloodshot eyes.

He noticed the direction Xu Gonggong was looking, so he turned around as well.

A mortal is clumsily climbing to the top of the furnace, trying to snatch the elixir that has not yet been refined.

Gun Gong's spirit was furious when it first saw this scene.

But then, Shen Jichi's consciousness recognized that person.

"Gu Jingnian?"

How did he get there?

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After drifting in and out of consciousness for an unknown period of time, Gu Jingnian suddenly awoke with a start, realizing that if he did not make a decision soon, he would be reduced to ashes.

He decided to give up all his superpowers, though he didn't know exactly how, but he saw Shen Jichi stabbing his heart with a light blade.

Gu Jingnian didn't know how to use the light blade, but he remembered that he also had a dagger.

He reached out and untied the bone dagger that was hanging around his neck with a rope; it was small and seemed more like an ornament than a weapon.

This was given to him by Zi Cang.

Gu Jingnian picked up the dagger and plunged it into his heart without hesitation.

"Release my spirit, relinquish my supernatural abilities..."

He muttered to himself, mimicking Shen Jichi, and felt the blood in his body draining away even faster.

At one moment, Gu Jingnian unexpectedly saw Zi Cang.

Zi Cang seemed to step out of nothingness and stand in the furnace, his figure extremely blurry, more blurry than ever before.

Zi Cang glanced at him, her eyes slightly puzzled. Then, Gu Jingnian looked closely and realized there was no one in front of him.

The scene just now might have been his illusion.

He can't rely on Zi Cang; he can only save himself.

So Gu Jingnian read that sentence aloud again.

Forced to this point, he genuinely wanted to give up his superpowers. He bled profusely and lay there, powerless and in constant pain, as if he had lost the ability to heal himself.

Gu Jingnian did not attempt to use his special abilities, treating himself as an ordinary person.

Sometime later, the beam of light wrapped around his back disappeared.

Gu Jingnian was about to fall into a deep sleep when he gritted his teeth, stood up, looked out of the furnace, and tried to unfold his fire wings, only to find that he could no longer do so.

Looking down, the wounds all over his body were shocking and had not healed on their own.

He truly became an ordinary person.

He was in excruciating pain and so weak he could die at any moment, yet he hadn't forgotten that there were still many people he needed to save.

They could only climb up little by little using their hands and feet.

Gu Jingnian did not climb as smoothly as Shen Jichi and Pei Nian; he soon fell to the ground.

He lay there on his back, closing his eyes listlessly. Soon, he opened them again, because he saw something that bothered him.

Inside the furnace, as the strange beast was being refined, red mist continuously drifted down, condensed at the bottom of the furnace, and flowed out through a complex pattern.

However, when the strange beast vanished into nothingness, the red mist it produced floated upwards.

Visibly, the rising red mist was noticeably redder and finer.

Gu Jingnian is no longer the ignorant boy he once was. He has a deep understanding of alchemy and quickly grasped what it was all about.

What falls downwards are impurities, while what floats upwards is the true essence containing extraordinary abilities.

Gu Jingnian then stopped climbing into the cracks in the furnace wall.

He climbed up the furnace walls, stepping on the ashes that clung to them, and finally reached the top.

There was indeed an opening in the center of the furnace top, through which the red mist seeped upwards. Gu Jingnian gritted his teeth, leaped up, and reached out to grab the opening in the wall.

He hung there, supported only by one scarred hand.

At that moment, he deeply felt the difficulty of being an ordinary person without superpowers.

His injuries prevented him from climbing, but the red mist swirled around him, and after a while, he miraculously regained his strength, pushed himself up, and climbed to the top of the furnace.

The moment he climbed out, Gu Jingnian knew exactly what he could find on top of the furnace.

Soon, he saw a small pill, no bigger than a bean, surrounded by red mist that continued to condense.

The pills are not yet fully refined; in fact, they are far from being completed.

Gu Jingnian immediately walked towards it.

He had seen Longxushui's memories. Longxushui encountered a pill made by his relatives and the entire clan, and without hesitation, he swallowed it in one gulp.

This is a matter of chance and opportunity, and there's no room for hesitation or fuss.

This little pill today may not be a good thing; it might be poison or a trap. Gu Jingnian didn't care.

He wanted to save people, but first he had to become stronger. He didn't have time to wait for the pill to become larger and more effective; his chance was fleeting.

He stretched out his hand.

A tremendous force struck from behind, like an invisible giant grabbing his waist, dragging him backward, and slamming him onto the high platform.

"Shuzi!"

Shen Jichi roared angrily.

"You dare to steal food?!"

However, as soon as he said that, Shen Jichi saw Gu Jingnian's throat move, and even heard a "gurgling" sound.

Gu Jingnian had already snatched the pill before he was thrown over.

The elixir wasn't even finished being refined when that brat swallowed it whole?
A murderous aura suddenly appeared in Shen Jichi's bloodshot eyes.

He still held Xu Gonggong in the air with one hand, and with the other hand, he pushed Gu Jingnian straight out, causing him to fall backward onto the ground, his back pierced by the two stone spikes.

Blood flowed from beneath Gu Jingnian and entered the blood pool.

A blade of light appeared above Gu Jingnian, slicing towards his abdomen, intending to cut open his stomach and retrieve the pill he had just swallowed.

But just then, Gu Jingnian reached out and slapped him.

"Oh!"

The stone platform shook, and a cracking sound came from it. The stone spikes on his back snapped off with a crash.

He had just swallowed the pill and hadn't even fully absorbed its essence when the power of his palm strike shook the mountains and rocks.

The next moment, Gu Jingnian grabbed the light blade and slowly stood up.

(End of this chapter)